Three weeks ago today I had the pleasure of presenting with web accessibility consultant and speaker Tom Babinszki on the panel “Living with a Disability in the Web 2.0 Era” at the Plain Talk Conference held in Alexandria, Virginia.

Here’s my PowerPoint presentation in video with the transcript below:

Before I begin I would like to thank you all for coming to a conference on communicating plainly and clearly. I find it interesting that I, who have found a compelling way to deliver presentation despite my significant speech impairment, have been asked to present at such a conference. This only proves that the communication method is secondary to the message.

I’d also like to mention that when some people are nervous their faces turn beet red, when I’m nervous my head bobs for apples. The fact that you cannot see the apples makes me question which one of us has the disability.

Living with a disability in this era of Web 2.0 technology is exciting, filled with opportunity. Technology is finally catching up to what I truly need. However, it has been a long road with several bumps and lessons learned along the way.

My typing career began at the tender age of five on a Smith Corona electric typewriter outfitted with a key guard to increase my likelihood of hitting only one key at a time. I glided my hand, in an ergonomically compromised position, along the top of the typewriter and typed with my left thumb.

Occupational therapists and other adults tried desperately to get me to type in other ways, but nothing worked as well or felt as natural as typing with my left thumb, which shows I’m the only expert in knowing how my body works best. I still own a Smith Corona to write cheques, fill out forms and make quick notes.

In Grade 9, my guidance counsellor suggested I learn to use computers as they would likely benefit to me later. That was the wisest advice I received from any counsellor, ever. That year I started on an Apple IIe and learned AppleSoft Basic from a Grade 12 student during one of my study periods. In later grades a computer in the Learning Centre was made available to me for doing assignments, which eliminated the necessity to retype “good” copies of papers — a significant timesaver for me.

On New Year’s Day, 1988, I headed off to university with a Commodore 64 generously donated by two local Lions Clubs. This computer, and a subsequent, updated 286 were terrific tools that enabled me to complete my university papers and exams and begin to connect with the outside world in a technologically new, yet very ordinary way: via email and bulletin board systems.

But my computing life didn’t begin in earnest until I met Darrell my geek husband -his words, not mine! Together we worked out, and continue to discover, computer access methods that work best for me.

As an example, we replaced the mouse with a sturdy joystick. This affords me better control of the pointer, despite my jerky hand movements.

We then added the software program E Z Keys. To save time and effort while typing I currently use the features:

• word prediction and completion, where numbered words are suggested dynamically as I type;
• abbreviation expansion, where I type a couple of letters that automatically expand to phrases or complete sentences;
• and automatic spaces, which are set to occur after punctuation.

When typing with only one thumb at ten words per minute, I need to be as efficient as possible. Even with this technology, writing my autobiography, I’ll Do It Myself, took me four years.

Keyboards without extra function keys or buttons across the top – that’s where I glide my hand – are becoming more difficult to find. And, invariably, one or two keys get gummed up, making the entire keyboard useless. (I require a lot of good dark chocolate when software is thwarting my best efforts!) I recently switched to a basic flexible, washable silicon keyboard without any extra buttons. The best thing about this fantastic assistive technology is that it isn’t AT, which means it isn’t outrageously priced. It cost 15 bucks at Staples!

Another cool piece of software I use frequently is TextAloud. Using this text-to-speech software with the synthesized voice of “Kate”, I am now able to give interviews, narrate videos as I please and make presentations such as this one. I dream of one day having a voice created using digital sampling of my and my family members’ voices and inflections to make my voice less Kate and more Glenda.

My foray into Web 2.0 began five years ago when I discovered blogging. I am not exaggerating, it changed my life forever. For the first time, I spoke with a clear, concise voice and could communicate with the world completely unhindered by my disability. Suddenly people were getting to know me – my thoughts, my opinions, my experiences – without being presented with my disability first. That isn’t to say I hide my disability, I am very open about my cerebral palsy on my blog. But my blog readers and friends get to know me before and beyond my cp. They call me the Left Thumb Blogger.

To highlight the change, I’d like to share a story: several years ago I attended a disability management conference. I was sitting in a room of 400 human resource managers, there to learn about employing people with disabilities, and I happened to be looking for a job. You’d think it would have been a room filled with opportunities, yet I have never felt so alone. No one spoke to me; no one interacted with me. My disability – or, moreover, my perceived disability – was the barrier.

Contrast that experience with this: I attend blogging and social media conferences – like BlogWorld in Las Vegas every October – and that uncomfortable, awkwardness about how to react to my jerky movements and my difficult-to-understand speech does not exist. Because I already have made online connections, relationships based on equal intellect and mutual respect, people already know there’s much more to me than my cp. Online introductions help bypass that awkward stage.

I work as a web accessibility consultant with three levels of government, transit authorities and non-profit organizations to improve accessibility of their websites for people with disabilities. I am sought after to assess website accessibility and suggest improvements. I write about accessibility issues on my blog Doitmyselfblog.com, give presentations and teach an online course to bloggers, enabling them to create more accessible content and, thus, increase their readership.

I also use Twitter and Facebook to connect with colleagues, friends and family. I prefer Twitter because tweets are limited to 140 characters — my left thumb keeps up quite nicely. It has become my water cooler. I work from home, but I no longer feel I’m working in a vacuum. There’s always someone around who asks or answers a question, offers or needs an encouraging word or shares a laugh with me regardless of whether I’m working through the day or night.

Like most discerning web users, I tend to avoid or spend less time on sites that are overwhelming. Instead I prefer those with clean, crisp design. For example, I prefer MyAlltop to Google Reader to follow the various blogs I read. Google Reader was hard to maintain with more articles added daily. MyAlltop – a simpler, cleaner reader that maintains the list at 5 articles per blog followed, adding new articles and dropping previous ones without action on my part to keep it manageable.

Other things I personally avoid or struggle with online include:

• Search features like the one found on the official website for Americans with Disabilities Act, which involved a whopping four pages to complete a search. I might as well use Google — even if I have to scroll to find the appropriate link, it’s much less arduous than the endless clicking.
• Tiny clickable areas can be difficult for me to click on.
• Fly out menus are tricky to click on before vanishing and I typically click on a link I didn’t intend to go.
• Auto-start audio or video cause me to jump out of my skin.

A new challenge has popped up in recent months that sends my frustration through the roof: My assistive technology is not keeping up with new web technology. An example: I have started using Google Wave – an online collaboration tool – to collaborate, brainstorm and stay connected with a networking group. The conflict between Google Wave and my E Z Keys word prediction is causing two or three words to be typed when I enter an appropriate number, forcing me to backspace to delete unwanted words.

To avoid this, I can also type my message in Notepad and then paste it into Wave, but really, both options are more time consuming and less efficient than properly functioning software, and particularly frustrating during the collaborative process.

I recently purchased my latest acquisition in Chicago – an iPad. This is more than the latest, hottest toy to me. In the short time I’ve had it, my life has changed yet again. I bought it to try the communication app Proloquo2Go, and used it as my communication device of choice that first day I had it, both at the social media conference, and afterward, hanging out with friends at the bar! My iPad takes conversation to a deeper level than was ever imaginable when using standard, low-tech alphabet cards to get a point across.

The iPad, pricey to the average person, is available at a fraction of the cost of a single-purpose augmentative communication device. An easy method of communication is so important to my inclusion in society. It also allows me to tweet, check email, write blog posts and read while I am out and about, away from my computer. My iPad is a Blackberry or iPhone in a size I can easily use.

I was asked to look toward the future, and tell you of a technology I might wish for. A dream I have had since I was ten is a computer that reads my thoughts, with every word appearing onscreen. There has been some advancement in the brain research and relevant technology, hopefully it is realized well before my left thumb needs to retire due to debilitating arthritis. One can dream…

If I may offer one final suggestion: learn about your clients, your colleagues, your patients with disabilities, go read their blogs. Spend time getting to know the people you serve and work with beyond their disabilities and it will likely change you. The opportunity is there, like never before. Use it.

To offer you a starting point, today I have published a post on my blog that lists several of my favourite blog posts and some of the bloggers with disabilities or with loved ones with disabilities whom I follow. I invite you to stop by, to read and to experience.

Thank you.

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And for my next adventure…presenting at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference in Austin, Texas, in March 2011!

I submitted my speaker’s proposal in early July. Because SXSW is a community-driven event, acceptance of my proposal is determined by three factors:

• 30% by SXSW staff,
• 40% by the Advisory Board – a group of industry professionals from across the US and around the world,
• 30% by you, my loyal readers and fans!

Voting is now open until Friday, August 27,  2010, at 11:59pm central time. To vote, you’ll need to create a account (name, email and password). (The Panel Picker interface is experiencing a few hiccups today. Please persist!)

Any comments on my proposed topic "The Untapped iPad Market: Is Your Site POUR?" are greatly appreciated so that I can prepare a rockin’ presentation! If you’d like to provide feedback but not create an account, feel free to leave your comments in the comment section below. Although your vote would be appreciated.

How can you help?

• Create an account and vote for my proposal. (While there please lend a vote to my friends Sheila Scarborough, Becky McCray, Liz Strauss and Terry Starbucker.)
• Spread the word on Twitter and Facebook.
• If you receive this post in your inbox, please forward it appropriate colleagues and friends.

Thanks kindly!

Hopefully I will be off to Austin in March…

(This post was drafted on my iPad while waiting in the dentist office. I’m lovin’ it!)

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Liz Strauss continually shares nuggets of wisdom that leave me pondering and savouring it in my mind until I’ve fully sucked out all of the flavour, all of the meaning. 

During her keynote at this year’s SOBCon (Successful and Outstanding Bloggers Conference), she tossed out another nugget of wisdom:

You’re building a barn, not a coliseum.

I have been pondering, savouring those words since April 30th. While busily building the Blog Accessibility Mastermind course and website over the last few weeks, I’ve realized there are three points to Liz’s words:

1. A barn is not huge.

Coliseums are monstrosities; barns are not. Start with something small.

I had been intending to launch Blog Accessibility Mastermind (BAM) since September, but writing the thirteen lessons was a daunting task and other commitments kept distracting me. Reframing BAM from a 13-lesson comprehensive course to a 6-lesson introductory course made the project more manageable, more doable. The project was then possible to get off the ground; revisions and additions can come later.

2. A barn is solid, not finely polished.

A barn is solidly built and serves it purpose: to house livestock. The walls are not finely sanded and flawlessly painted. This is not imperfection; it’s beauty, in it’s own way.

My main focus is building solid content for the individuals who are kindly paying to learn something new. Although having a forum in which members could discuss course content and share ideas would be nice, finding an accessible forum application and setting it up is time consuming. Using the comment section within the members’ area will work equally as well and is something familiar to the members who are bloggers and know how to interact in the comment section.

3. Actually, it’s a barn raising.

Reminiscing my Little House on the Prairies days, a farmer didn’t build a barn. The community came together to raise barns, with each individual contributing his or her skill or talent.

For someone who, in the past, has tried to do everything herself, to control everything herself, this was the most difficult point to learn. Seeing the strengths and talents in others is easy, but then stepping back to allow them to do what they do best – and accepting how they do it – is the difficult part.

However, in the end, the key to a successful barn raising is accepting the talents and energy from others as gifts and graciously welcoming them into the community. Their wanting to be involved in the project is a testament to the barn being raised.

Once the barn is raised, all those involved join in a celebration meal. Since hosting such a celebration with fried chicken and apple pie isn’t possible virtually, I would like to publicly thank those involved in the raising of Blog Accessibility Mastermind:

• SOBCon co-founders Liz Strauss and Terry Starbucker for inviting me to present at SOBCon09, which laid the foundation for this barn;
• The Random Twitter People (aka Paul Merrill, Deb Brown, Becky McCray, and Jon Swanson) for their brainstorming, clarity-finding and kick-butting;
• Mary-Lynn Foster for her service as a sounding board;
• Oscar Gonzalez for finding the right tool to make a tedious task a breeze;
• Jason Teitelman, Tony and the graphic guys at BlogCatalog for the free ad;
• Charles Pennell for tracking down the "pesky" blue and replacing it with mauve in the sidebar;
• Miss Dazey for being the official PayPal buy button tester and for her energetic cheerleading;
• Grant Griffiths for his enthusiastic tweets and support on launch day;
• Lori-ann Engel for her virtual assistance services – she makes me look good;
• My childhood friend Karen Tsang for writing a rockin’ sales page with me;
• To those I may have missed here, thank you for your never-ending support.
• And, last but definitely not least in any way, my wonderful husband Darrell for his unwavering support, patience and understanding, for keeping me well stocked in chocolate and for the ever increasing runs to Tim Horton’s for a caffeine fix.

When the time comes to raise your barn, you can count on me.

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Late last Thursday night I finally made it home after a good yet long week away in Chicago and then Fort Wayne, Indiana. Since getting home, things have been crazy; four trips to Toronto and one to Virginia are in my near future.

Here are a few random highlights while I finish unpacking my brain (before I need to repack it):

I did manage to score an iPad while in Chicago! A full review is coming soon. For now, I will say that, for me, the iPad works great as a communication device! In fact, it is life changing. The butterfly emerges a little bit further from her cocoon of silence.

Karen Putz, Amy Derby and I braved Chicago’s winds and rode the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier. With the seats enclosed like a gondola, being 150 feet in the air was not an issue. Being that high was a great vantage point for my first glimpse of one of the Great Lakes. My brand new iPad definitely aided in communicating with this duo, one of which is Deaf and the other is hearing impaired. Despite our three barriers in communicating, we had no shortage of topics to talk about!

Unfortunately, the anticipated karoke duet with Chris Brogan did not happen due to an accessibility issue. That story will be forthcoming. Nothing bad happens to bloggers; it’s all material!

I also attended this small event called SOBCon! I will share my takeaway lessons in yet another post. However, for me, SOBCon is more about interacting with the fellow attendees and friends rather than about the presentations, and having the iPad further deepened that interaction.

Sunday, after the last SOBCon session and a quick trip to Batman’s bathroom (without incident this year!), my electric scooter was wrestled into the trunk of car. Oftentimes, what counts as accessible transportation is solely determined by the strength of the desire to get from Point A to Point B. Whatever works!

Deb Brown, Becky McCray and I were off to Fort Wayne, Indiana, for a private retreat kindly hosted by Jon Swanson at his church. Paul Merrill also joined us.

(Photo credit: from Jon Swanson’s Flickr photostream)

The retreat was a time for brainstorming, sharing, asking questions and regaining focus – intense, amazing focus! And great friendships – all a result of blogging and Twitter. There was also time for teaching Glenda-ish, learning lemur calls and sipping first margaritas – critical skills when running a small business! And, of course, chocolate was also involved. A big thanks to Becky, Deb, Paul, Jon and Nancy Swanson.

That’s my week in a nutshell. How was your week?

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If everything has gone as planned, I’m now sitting on the plane, ready to take off. Chicago, here I come!

I’m off to Chicago for SOBCon2010: a conference for Successful and Outstanding Bloggers. Among other things, expected highlights will likely include a quick trip to the Apple store, a meeting with my friends Amy and Karen atop the ferris wheel at Navy Pier, plus, quite possibly, a karoke duet with Chris Brogan, which, hopefully, will not be YouTube’d!

I will share my adventures next weekend (I’ll be home late next Thursday night ). Until then, here’s a recap of last year’s trip to Chicago:

• How POUR is Your Blog
• SOBCon Recap
• Close Encounter with Oprah
• Stuck in Batman’s Bathroom

Make it an awesome week!

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I’ve been thinking about an earlier post in which I shared these 25 words about social media:

Social media gives voices to individuals marginalized and ignored by traditional media, enabling the world to hear these voices for the first time in history.

Some of the voices I have had the pleasure of hearing, which would not have been heard otherwise, include:

• Jenna Lumbardt’s story: Jenna is a young woman with autism and who is non-verbal. She shares her story via an email interview, which is then shared on a blog. When else in history would her own voice, in her own words, have been heard?
• Dave Hingsburger: I have had a professional crush on Dave since being involved with one project many moons ago. I read his blog when I need to hear another’s insight or the perspective of a fellow comrade in this daily battle for acceptance, accessibility and equality. This one video,  in which he shares his experience of witnessing abuse in an institution caring for people with disabilities, is particularly shocking and moving. Where in traditional media would you hear his powerful experiences and words without them being edited or spun a certain way?
• Tom Rogers: I first discovered Tom on YouTube. He’s a young kid who has cerebral palsy and shares his knowledge and expertise with computer technology via his webcam while laying the floor. He is now also blogging, doing reviews and sharing his opinions on technology. When else in history could a kid in a wheelchair share his passion for computers with a loyal audience? This young guy is going places!
• Ricky Buchanan: A still undiagnosed disability leaves her completely bedridden most days, yet she leads a very active life online. When else in history could an otherwise invisible (in the sense that she’s not out and about) member of society share her insights of living within four walls? (Watch for an interview with Ricky coming soon!)

This is quite an empowering time for many and, because these voices are now being heard, others are becoming enlightened and aware of people with disabilities.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. How has this shift in media and hearing (or being heard) for the first time these previously marginalized voices impacted you?

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Yesterday I was interviewed via email by CBC Radio about “Social Media and the Paralympics”. It was to air this morning on CBC’s Early Edition. However, my interview responses were cut from show, which raises a larger question about traditional media and representation of people with disabilities.

First, my written responses to the interviewer’s questions: 

How important is the role of social media in the Paralympic experience?

The role of the social media is crucial in the Paralympic experience. I have found that many people didn’t even know the Paralympics existed because traditional media do not cover the world’s second-largest sporting event. Social media is increasing awareness and building interest in these Games. Once people know about the Paralympics, they are wanting to know more, to see more; social media is filling the gap where mainstream media is failing.  Also, social media is also being used to put pressure on traditional media for more coverage of the Paralympics; for example, the Facebook page "Encourage CTV to Cover More of the Paralympics". Yesterday CTV announced it’ll air live the Closing Ceremonies across Canada. A result from the outcry via social media? Quite possible. Without social media people would experience very little of the Paralympics unless they are at the venues.

How does online help YOU experience the Games?

Social media has deepened my experience of the Games. I have tweetdeck open all day and am monitoring the hashtag #paralympics, so I get results from events immediately rather than needing to wait until the day’s highlights on CTV. I first heard of Brian McKeever’s gold in cross country skiing on Twitter. I also see photos from people’s experiences and links to blog posts and online news stories related to the Games. Paralympicsports.tv allows me to watch events that I wouldn’t see otherwise. Thanks to social media and online coverage I’m able to experience the Paralympic Games in a way I couldn’t relying solely on mainstream media coverage.

What’s the difference between social media during the Olympics vs the Paralympics?

The difference between social media during the Olympics and the Paralympics is there seems to be more focus on the athletes’ stories and the actual events, like what is ice sledge hockey and how does wheelchair curling differ from regular culling. There is definitely less coverage from the various pavilions , houses and other party-related events; no doubt because there are fewer. And, as I mentioned before, there’s an unified rallying voice for more coverage by traditional media. The social media has created a hunger, a market for the Paralympics.

Often in situations like this I would record a phone conversation and play it on air. From what I’ve read of your bio, I understand that we won’t be doing that, but I’d like to explain why. Would you mind telling be how you explain your ability to communicate, so I don’t make a mess of it?

Due my cerebral palsy, my speech is significantly impaired making verbal communication with those not well-versed in Glenda-ish futile. The written word is my most effective means of communication. Given enough preparation time I also use text-to-speech technology, although I use that mainly when giving presentations and speeches.

Despite my last response, I was not included in the story “Social Media and the Paralympics”. Yet, included were two local bloggers – Rebecca Bolwitt aka Miss604 and Andrea of 2010VanFan – and a professor from the School of Communications at Simon Fraser University (coincidentally I have a communications minor from SFU).

I can’t help but wonder if my responses were excluded because I am unable to do a phone interview, like the others did. My method of responding didn’t fit their format.

This raises a larger question: how much access or representation do people with disabilities, particularly those with significant physical disabilities, have in traditional media?

I mean, we’re talking about the world’s largest sporting event for people with disabilities and how traditional media provides minimal coverage, then traditional media cuts a well-known blogger with a disability from a story on how the social media is covering the Paralympics. WTF? What gives?

Social media is definitely more accessible to those of us with disabilities, enabling our otherwise marginalized voices to be heard for the first time in history.

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Today I was interviewed via email by CBC Radio about “Social Media and the Paralympics”. Perhaps my post The Paralympics: Challenging Social Media to Respond Where Traditional Media Fails Athletes with Disabilities got their attention.

The interview, in some form, will air Thursday morning around 7:20 am (pacific time). You can catch it on 690 AM or 88.1 FM and online as a podcast.

Once the interview airs, I’ll post the questions with my responses here on my blog for those who couldn’t catch it and for my readers who are hearing impaired.

Woohoo!

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For 2010, I have chosen streamline as my word to focus on; as in streamlining my lines of communication. Giving this much thought, what I am truly seeking are ways to get my social media and networking efforts working seamlessly and smoothly; in essence, efficiently managing my media empire.

The first step is to inventory my media empire, visually represented in this diagram (click on the image to enlarge):

As I see it, my blog is the center of my media empire with seven smaller territories or outposts: Twitter, FaceBook, Linkedln, YouTube, Flickr, StumbleUpon, and Email Broadcast.

The next step is where the process becomes intriguing and takes me back to my university courses in Mass Communication – it’s all about cross-media promotion! Think what you will about her, but Oprah is an awesome example of someone who has built a media empire and uses cross-media promotion to keep the whole thing humming seamlessly: she mentions her magazine on her TV show, her magazine points readers to her website, her website provides details about her satellite radio station, etc. Brilliant!

Those of us blogging and using various other social media and networking tools are striving to do the exact same thing, albeit on a much smaller scale (at least, for the majority of us!).

Taking my social media empire diagram from above, I then add red arrows indicating the flow of information, the cross-media promotion efforts. In this diagram (click on it to enlarge) the dotted red arrows indicate a manual effort or action and the solid red arrow indicate an automatic action.

The numbered arrows indicate the following:

1. Manually tweet when I publish a blog post, bringing people to the blog.
2. New blog posts are automatically added to my Facebook Notes and Networked Blogs. (Need to manually hit publish on Networked Blogs, but then it appears twice on my Profile page. A setting somewhere?)
3. Tweets are fed automatically into my Facebook status line.
4. Linkedln profile brings people to the blog, in theory.
5. Videos posted on YouTube bring people to the blog.
6. Manually stumbling posts brings people to the blog.
7. Blog posts are automatically sent to email subscribers.
8. The recently added TweetMeme (currently located in the upper left corner of posts) that enables readers to manually tweet out about that blog post. (I’ve noticed these tweets aren’t appearing in the twitterstream; rather, only the TweetMeme website. Another setting somewhere? Or, would another plugin be better for this? )
9. Currently, the TweetMeme feature is also include in the email broadcast so the email readers easily tweet about the post.

Representing my social media empire in this way I find exciting and I can now see where the gaps are. This year I aim to experiment with ways to connect and to strengthen my empire, ways for cross-media promotion. Some experiments will succeed, other will bomb. I intend to share what I learn in an ebook later this year.

Have you mapped your social media empire? What have you discovered?

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According to PostRank Analytics – a system for analyzing and scoring engagement events, social engagement refers to “the attention other people pay to your published content, like blog posts, news and articles. They see and read a post, and then because it’s interesting, inspiring, or controversial, they get “hooked” and decide to take further action.”

PostRank’s scoring system measures the “5 C’s” of engagement:

• Creating: i.e. writing a blog post
• Critiquing: i.e. leaving a blog comment
• Chatting: i.e sharing and discussing information on Twitter
• Collecting: i.e. submitting a post to Stumbleupon
• Clicking:i.e. clicking a link to read a blog post

The more engagement an event requires (i.e. writing a blog post), the more engagement points the event receives. Bloggers can use their posts’ engagement scores as a measurement of how well their readers are reacting to and engaging with their content.

PostRank crunched the numbers to determine the most engaged readers in 2009. And the results are in…!

Thanks to you, my very engaged readers, Do It Myself Blog ranked #6 in the Disability category! Thank you!

The detailed analysis is available from PostRank. The top 10 engaging posts are:

1. Da Wife on Wheels Dismissed Yet Again / August 29, 2009 – 406 engagement points
2. 5 Reasons Why Bloggers and Web Designers Should Consider Accessibility / October 6, 2009 – 346 points
3. Let’s Feed 100 People in Need Christmas Dinner, Again! / December 4, 2009 – 335 points
4. WordPress Misses the #1 Accessibility Tip / September 28, 2009 – 325 points
5. What Makes a Blog Theme Accessible? / August 6, 2009 – 274 points
6. To the Employers Who Refused Me a Job, You Lose! / December 30, 2009 – 273 points
7. Social Media Empowers Otherwise Silenced Voices / July 31, 2009 – 251 points
8. How POUR is Your Blog / May 1, 2009 – 222 points
9. Dreams Do Come True – With a Little Help from Friends / October 23, 2009 –164 points
10. Are Multiple Themes Useful in Improving Blog Accessibility? / August 24, 2009 – 164 points

I’ve included the post dates to illustrate that the older posts (hence more time for engagement) are not necessarily ranked higher. These numbers also prove your comments, tweets, stumbles and the like do matter! Thank you.

I will continue creating, if you continue critiquing, chatting, collecting and clicking. Together, let’s see how engaged we can be in 2010!

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